Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler will on Wednesday take another step out of his international isolation by paying his first visit to Turkey since the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's Istanbul consulate.
The talks in Ankara between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan come one month before US President Joe Biden visits Riyadh for a regional summit focused on the energy crunch caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Erdogan's decision to revive ties with one of his biggest rivals is also driven in large part by economics and trade.
Turks' living standards are imploding one year before a general election that poses one of the biggest challenges of Erdogan's mercurial two-decade rule.
Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government released scant details of the gruesome murder that deeply embarrassed the Saudi crown prince.
But it is now drumming up investment and central bank assistance from the very countries it opposed on ideological grounds in the wake of the Arab Spring revolts.
"I think this is probably one of the most significant visits to Ankara by a foreign leader in almost a decade," said The Washington Institute's Turkey specialist Soner Cagaptay.
"Erdogan is all about Erdogan. He's all about winning elections and I think he has decided to kind of swallow his pride."
The Turkish leader is scheduled to receive the crown prince at his presidential palace and then host him at a private dinner.
No press conference or signing ceremony is planned.
Analysts believe Prince Mohammed will be looking to see if he can win broader backing ahead of a possible new nuclear agreement between world powers and the Saudis' arch-nemesis Iran.
"There is increased confidence (in Riyadh) that Ankara could be more useful in the current geopolitical environment," the Eurasia Group said in a research note.
Turkey's rapprochement with the Saudis began with an Istanbul court decision in April to break off the trial in absentia of 26 suspects accused of links to Khashoggi's killing and to transfer the case to Riyadh.
US intelligence officials have determined that Prince Mohammed approved the plot against Khashoggi -- which Riyadh denies.
The court's decision drew strong protests from Khashoggi's Turkish fiancee Hatice Cengiz.
But it paved the way for a politically sensitive visit to Saudi Arabia by Erdogan just three weeks later.
The kingdom's state media ended up releasing a picture of Erdogan hugging the crown prince that created a furore in Turkey.
"He gets off the plane and hugs the killers," fumed Turkey's main opposition
leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Erdogan's likely chief rival in the presidential race.